Riding the Elephant

Modi says there is a “new normal” and warns ‘If there is a terror attack on India, we will hit back“

Pakistan’s army chief and Chinese technology emerge as new threats

Trump wants to mediate on Kashmir, but India resists such offers

After four days of escalating hostilities that brought India and Pakistan nearer to war than at any time since the Kargil border conflict in 1999, the ceasefire announced yesterday (May 10) halted the two nuclear-armed countries’ cycle of increasingly serious attacks and counterattacks. But it did little to improve diplomatic relations and does nothing to solve the basic problems of Kashmir. 

Indeed, the risks of conflict may have worsened. Pakistan has for the first time been put on notice by India that any future terrorist activity would be seen virtually as an act of war. This was indicated by officials over the weekend and has been confirmed (May 12) by prime minister Narendra Modi in a tv address to the nation where he said “We have only kept in abeyance our operations against Pakistan; future will depend on their behaviour.”

“We have set a new normal,” he said. “If there is a terror attack on India, we will hit back. We will take stern action at every place from where the roots of terror spring forth. India will not accept any nuclear blackmail….We won’t see the government that sponsors terror and terror outfits as different.”

Pakistan has also been shown to be led by a powerful aggressive chief of army staff, General Asim Munir (below), who has more power than the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif. He is blamed by India for triggering the crisis with the terrorist attack that killed 26 Indian tourists on April 22. And it has more advanced and effective Chinese-origin air and missile technology than had been realised. 

Modi’s “new normal” means India would feel free to bomb military installations, as it has been doing in this crisis for the first time since wars in the 1970s, instead of merely striking at terror camps as it did after attacks in 2016 and 2019 and, initially, after the recent April 22 attack on tourists in Pahalgam. At a media briefing on May 11 a senior army officer said Pakistan had been told of India’s “firm and clear intent” to respond “fiercely and punitively” and with “decisive force”,

Neither government wants outright war, but these are serious potential escalations that will increase international concern about the risks of confrontation between the two nuclear-armed countries. Terrorist attacks emanating from Pakistan have been part of the relationship for decades.

Pakistan has a long record of sponsoring terror dating from its support of the militant Khalistani 1980’s independence movement in the Indian Punjab to support for the Taliban and harbouring the al-Qaeda leader, bin Laden.  

There have been media suggestions that General Munir’s aim has been to disrupt Kashmir’s gradual return to some stability after decades of unrest. Unlike Pakistan’s previous army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who tried to normalise relations with India, Munir has strong religious and ideological beliefs that govern his nationalist approach. He did not seem to accept the positive progress. 

Shekhar Gupta, a veteran Indian editor, has even suggested that the completion of a railway express service between Delhi and Srinagar in the Kashmir valley may have triggered Munir’s reaction and determination to act.

Shortly before that attack, Munir had spoken publicly, saying: “No matter where you live, remember – your roots lie in a high civilisation, noble ideology, and proud identity.” He added that Kashmir “will be our jugular vein, we will not forget it, we will not leave our Kashmiri brothers in their historical struggle”.

After India began to strike back at Pakistan with Operation Sindoor on the night of May 6, defence experts across the world began to monitor the action in the skies because this is the first time that Chinese fighters have been used in combat against advanced western hardware. This is especially important given the risk of China making a military bid to take over Taiwan and because of co-operation between China and Russia in Ukraine. 

The extent to which Pakistan had been armed by China with advanced technology was not widely recognised till claims emerged that Chinese-origin jet fighters had been used to down India jets, probably a French Mirage and also a Rafale, India’s most recent high-profile acquisition.

Indian officials would not confirm or deny the reports, but admitted at the media briefing that “losses are a part of conflict”, though all its pilots had returned home. Loss of a Mirage was admitted later.The officials also claimed to have “downed a few Pakistani planes”.

Pakistan has only admitted “minor damage” to one plane and sees the overall result as having “shattered myths of Indian supremacy in tech, diplomacy, and warfare”.

Pakistan’s use of the Chinese equipment highlighted the role of the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation, whose shares rocketed by more than 40% in just two days last week, the Financial Times reported on May 9. “Almost three decades after first taking to the skies, the Chinese plane-maker’s first fighter jet, the J-10 Vigorous Dragon, had finally seen combat — and survived.” The jointly developed JF-17 fighter and PL-15 airborne missiles were also used along with HQ-9 Chinese surface-to-air missiles, providing significant unexpected challenges to India. 

“Aside from co-operation on nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, a lot of what China supplied used to be low-end stuff – tanks, artillery, small arms,” a defence specialist told the FT. Pakistan was “becoming a showcase for some of China’s newer capabilities.”

This was also the first confrontation with drones – mostly Turkish by Pakistan and Israeli by India – which increased flexibility for cross-border assaults without the risk of losing expensive aircraft. 

What happens next is not clear, apart from a meeting tomorrow (May 12 ) between the directors general of military operations (DGMOs). These senior army officers conduct the formal communications – and run a hot line – between the two countries since there has been no declaration of war.

The US would clearly like to use the crisis to try to tackle the two countries’ basic claims for Kashmir territory. It would probably argue that, after helping to broker the cease-fire, it has a role to play in trying to find a long term solution. Such offers have always been rejected by India.

America’s secretary of state Marco Rubio announced yesterday that India and Pakistan had agreed “to start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site”. London and Abu Dhabi were rumoured to be possible locations but, while this was welcomed by Pakistan, Indian officials said it was not part of the cease-fire agreement. 

President Donald Trump, who stole the world headlines by announcing the ceasefire yesterday, followed up by offering to mediate in what he described as “1,000-1,500-year-old conflict”. India always refuses any international mediation, and its politicians quickly pointed out that the Kashmir issue that has led to the wars and terrorist activity dates from the partition of the two countries in 1947,not ancient history.

The ceasefire was agreed after extensive international contacts yesterday. The US was directly involved along with Britain and Saudi Arabia together with Iran, the UAE and Turkey. China’s foreign minister Wang Yi is reported to have spoken  to India’s national security adviser Ajit Doval, calling for a ceasefire, and presumably was in touch with Pakistan.

Pressure for a ceasefire built up early yesterday after India accused Pakistan of multiple attacks on military and civilian sites using high-speed missiles, drones and fighter jets. India then responded with air-to-surface BrahMos cruise missiles (jointly developed with Russia) and other weapons, aimed at Pakistan’s military targets such as command centres and radar installations. This included three Pakistan air force bases away from border areas. There were also reports that Pakistan was massing troops near the border.

“It was at this juncture that Pakistan reached out to the US for urgent intervention,” reports India’s NDTV (a pro-government tv channel owned by businessman Gautam Adani, who is close to prime minister Narendra Modi). “According to government sources, US officials had already been in contact with both sides in anticipation of escalating tensions. But the alert around strategic assets led Washington to step in more decisively”. India then “signalled that the Indian armed forces were prepared for the next phase of escalation, which would have involved coordinated strikes on energy and economic targets, as well as deeper strategic command structures”. 

Pakistan was also concerned about the future of two IMF support measures totalling $8.4bn, of which $1.4bn was agreed on May 9. There was increasing international criticism, including allegations that such funds were diverted to military activity and support for terrorism. The Islamabad finance ministry reportedly provided written assurances to the IMF that funds would not be diverted.

This has been a brief crisis following the terror attack last month. There is, so far at least, little hope that it will lead to any improvement in relations between the two countries. 

Two exhibitions track stresses and tensions in India and across South Asia

Auctions hit records with new wealthy Indian buyers bidding $millions 

Six months after an exhibition was held at London’s Barbican Centre showing India modern art from the end of the last century, a retrospective has opened in a Hyde Park gallery of works by Arpita Singh, 87, a respected but under-recognised Indian artist whose large oils on canvas portray the complex crosscurrents of Indian life.

Staged in the Serpentine Gallery North till July 27, this is Singh’s first solo show outside India.

“Arpita talks about violence, wars and aggression, and all sorts of injustice, while using the language of play, always humour jest and wit,” her friend and fellow artist Nilima Sheikh told me earlier this year. “She’s reluctant to talk about the content of her art, instead she talks about the process, the way she uses oil on canvas”. 

This coincides with another exhibition – (Un)Layering the Future Past – at London University’s SOAS of 26 young artists (most born in the 1980s) from across South Asia.

The aim here is to spread artistic awareness of different South Asian countries’ social and other issues such as the region’s ecology, gender, migration and political unrest with a mix of paintings and drawings, textiles and installations.

Sponsored by Delhi’s Dhoomimal Gallery memorial trust, it is on show till June 21 and has been co-curated by Salima Hashmi, a veteran Pakistani artist and professor based in Lahore (FT profile 26/4/2025 here) .

“We come back to the old colonial capital to talk to one another,” she told me, lamenting Pakistani artists’ lack of visa access to India and other restrictions on freedom of expression. 

“Artists have to be first responders,” she says. Recent generations of artists in India had been more focussed on galleries’ requirements than on issues. “In Lahore we question everything”. 

Though Hashmi doesn’t approve of the commercialisation of many artists younger than Arpita Singh and her fellow Baroda school, both exhibitions are significant at a time when the Indian art market is growing rapidly with record multi-million-dollar auction prices. 

London is becoming a focal point for exhibitions. Sculptures by Homi Bhabha, a Pakistani-American, will be on show at the Barbican next month, and an exhibition centred around the Indian sculptor Mrinalini Mukherjee will open at the Royal Academy at the end of October. 

It is tempting to describe Arpita Singh’s large oils as cluttered or as a cacophony, but that would be too negative for her complex rendering of Indian life with a seemingly unstructured array of women and men standing, lying, or sitting among almost map-like landscapes and townscapes that include cars, buildings and (almost always) disconnected aircraft.

“The power of her narrative is how the world becomes a quilt of characters who play their own parts,” says Uma Nair, a leading art critic. “The beauty is how she weaves violence and chaos and patriarchal mores all so softly”.

The exhibition is titled Remembering, which led The Guardian newspaper to headline its review “Beautiful chaos reigns in India’s tumultuous past”. My main memories seeing the works at various times in India has been of a recurring sky-blue colour with the small aircraft appearing in most works, replaced later by guns, military figures and fighters. Nilima Sheikh told me the aircraft were to create a “sense of wonderment” for children.

The artist’s more approachable smaller watercolours and seminal ink line drawings are closely packed at the Serpentine with scarce description in two under-lit corridors that straddle the gallery. These are worth an exhibition of their own. More easily accessible interpretation is specially needed for people who drop in on an afternoon’s walk across Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, to begin to appreciate the artist’s messages. Even experts find that challenging.

“Look for secret trapdoors and open sesame codes if you like, but mind you, if you begin to think the meaning is more important than the game….you may well trip up,” warns Sheikh in the catalogue.

A 1989 oil, Munna Apa’s Garden is one of the most puzzling works (above). It looks at first like a random mix of homely scenes till one spots a body lying in the middle, which everyone seems to be ignoring. “Scales and perspectives don’t entirely make sense, as cars and airplanes are superposed onto a bed of flowers. Nor does one entirely understand what has gone wrong in this enchanting setting,” says the catalogue.

Even more puzzling is Devi Pistol Wali where the supreme Hindu goddess Devi stands on a man in the style of the goddess Kali who’s sometimes depicted standing on the chest of Lord Shiva. Devi is pointing a pistol at a man with a sword accompanied by the usual aeroplane car and a turtle. 

Other works seem to reflect a change of mood down the years from a relatively gentle interpretation of Indian life to despair if not anger at developments of heavy government and bureaucracy, violence and wars. 

Exhibitions usually increase auction interest so it’s quite likely Singh will hit new records soon. Her highest dollar price of $2.24m was achieved at a Saffronart sale in December 2010 for a large 16-panel canvas titled Wish Dream (essay here by Uma Nair). That was the dollar equivalent of the Rs9.6 crore (Rs96m) auction price at the then exchange rate. It was beaten by Rs11 crore (Rs110m) paid in a Pundole (Mumbai) auction in August 2023 for Watching, by which time the rupee had fallen in value, so it translated as only $1.33m. 

Wealthy bid $millions

Recent auction records have been for works by the renowned Progressive group who began painting in the middle of the last century. At the Saffronart auction earlier this month, a record Tyeb Mehta, Trussed Bull, (below) had eight bidders up to nearly $4m, after which two fought it out to reach a total of $7.2m, twelve times the top estimate. The auction had record $25.2m total sales.

That followed a totally unexpected record of $13.75m for a memorable work by M.F.Husain, another member of the Progressives, that was taken so far above the expected $4m-$5m by two bidders that it may take some time to beat. 

“There’s a mindset change with the wealthy of India finally accepting art as the best legacy to leave behind, the legacy of culture,” says Dinesh Vazirani, co-founder and director of Saffronart which is India’s leading auction house. “New buyers are coming in at serious values that I’ve not seen before with budgets of £2m to $5m – individuals as well as museums”. 

In July, a London exhibition aimed at these rich buyers will have works for sale by more than 40 of South Asia’s top artists. It is being staged by the London-based South Asia-oriented Grosvenor Gallery with Phillips, a leading auction house that does not usually handle Indian art. It is carefully timed to coincide with the Wimbledon tennis tournament and India-England Test match at Lord’s. “Everyone will be in town,” says Conor Macklin, founder director of he Grosvenor.